Heaven's Not Enough
by Dracoqueen22
Summary: Soundwave had already known who Lord Megatron would choose if it came to it. Takes place between episodes "Regeneration" and "Darkest Hour" of season two. Part of my Fidelis Arc, sequel to With Honor Intact, Eden in Morning, and Homecoming. (DreadwingxSoundwave)


**Title: Heaven's Not Enough**

**Universe: TFP, Fidelis Arc (sequel to Homecoming, With Honor Intact, and Eden in Morning)  
**

**Characters: Soundwave, Vehicons, DreadwingxSoundwave mentions**

**Rating: T**

**Warnings: Spoilers for season two, Off-screen canonical character death, very light gore, angst**

**Description: Soundwave had already known who Lord Megatron would choose if it came to it. (Takes place after "Regeneration" and before "Darkest Hour")  
**

* * *

The moment Starscream showed his treacherous faceplate, Soundwave had known this outcome to be inevitable. The pull between Lord Megatron and his backstabbing second defied definition. No matter Megatron's claims, he could and would never bring himself to offline Starscream.

Now was no different than the past.

Soundwave could have told everyone how this was going to end. No one asked. But he knew Lord Megatron, he knew Starscream. He knew what was inevitable.

And he knew, from the moment the truth was out, Dreadwing could not let his twin's fate lie. He had never liked Starscream anyway, and this was all the excuse he needed.

Soundwave knew who Lord Megatron would choose if it came to it.

He knew all of these things. Could not stop them even if he wanted, because the conclusion was inescapable.

That did not mean seeing the aftermath hurt any less. Or worse, watching it from one of the many cameras situated around the Nemesis, and the more personal recording made by Ravage, whom Soundwave had tasked with watching over Dreadwing when he wasn't scouting Earth.

Starscream was full of victorious glee, at least when he wasn't swallowing down his fear at the close call.

Lord Megatron had retreated to the bridge, confident in his choice, but shaken by the encounter, in as much as the leader of the Decepticons could be shaken.

The drones had been left to clean up the mess in a medbay conspicuously absent of its chief medic.

Lord Megatron was not one for sentimentality. Then again, the Decepticons had long abandoned anything resembling sentiment. It was a liability, a weakness. It caused mechs to hesitate in a war that punished hesitation.

Messes were cleaned up efficiently, with little fuss.

Dreadwing was a mess, one to be disposed of beyond his master's sight. So long as he didn't have to think of it again, Lord Megatron didn't particularly care how. His designation would be marked in the database, branded traitor.

The Autobots had buried Skyquake. They had constructed a cairn of Earthen material, but they had at least given the fallen warrior a smattering of honor.

Dreadwing would be dumped, forgotten, in some waste disposal corner of the Nemesis. Knock Out would be sent to strip his frame of useful parts, take his weapons for refurbishment, and Soundwave didn't want to contemplate what else the sadistic medic might do.

Soundwave refused to allow that to happen. No matter what choice Dreadwing had made, he was still a Decepticon, he was still _loyal_.

Wanting to dispose of Starscream was hardly a foreign thought to most Decepticons after all. Soundwave himself was no stranger to it, and the loathing he felt for the Air Commander had increased exponentially as of late.

The Nemesis was flying in silence.

Starscream had disappeared to his quarters to lick his wounds. Knock Out was still hiding in the aftermath. Lord Megatron was back in his place of honor, perched on the bridge, plotting the Autobots' destruction. The Insecticons were in their hive. The various drones were keeping to themselves, unwilling to call unwanted attention. An unexpectedly wise move.

Soundwave had only one destination in mind, Ravage pinging him with messages of urgency. He returned his symbiote's pings with packets of confirmation. Haste was a matter of course.

He found them just down the hall from the medbay, three drones laboring under the weight of a battle-heavy Seeker, trying to stuff Dreadwing down a recycling chute. Anger flared before Soundwave could pin it down. He disengaged his battle protocols. The drones were only obeying orders.

They paused when they caught of him.

"Sir!" One saluted.

_Desist immediately_, Soundwave transmitted across their personal comms, easily picking up their frequencies after a moment's scan. _Dreadwing, my task. _

They didn't have enough programming to protest. All three loosed their grips at once, Dreadwing's frame clattering to the floor. Soundwave's systems rumbled, spark giving a strange flutter. Dreadwing would have been furious at the carelessness.

"Yes, sir," said the same one as before.

Soundwave moved aside, a silent command for them to depart. Not a one questioned him, not a one spared him a curious look or inquisitive brush of a shallow energy field.

Starscream they might question, but not Soundwave. Never Soundwave. Their fear of him, his hacking abilities, was a tangible overcast.

The three drones saluted and filed past him.

Soundwave waited for Ravage to confirm that they were gone, and no other witnesses were present, before he approached Dreadwing's empty frame. It was pure sentiment on his part, Soundwave knew.

Dreadwing's spark was gone, extinguished in that single, powerful blast. Soundwave knew the specs of Dreadwing's cannon, could tell at a glance how the shot had entered through his dorsa, where plating was thin to keep him flexible about the torso. The scent of charred metal still clung to Dreadwing's frame, and the even fainter odor of a dispersed spark. Like discharge and ozone and rust all rolled into one.

Laserbeak pinged him with a packet of worry.

Soundwave ignored the concern and demanded a status update in return.

Lord Megatron was still on the bridge, Laserbeak confirmed. The symbiote would maintain surveillance until Soundwave ordered otherwise.

He had time.

Deploying his linkage cables, Soundwave wrapped them firmly around Dreadwing's frame. The medbay was close enough and there was equipment suitable to his needs available. His thin frame belied his strength. There were few on the Nemesis who knew the truth of Soundwave's capabilities and he preferred to keep it that way.

He miscalculated the first pull, and the horrendous screech of metal protesting against metal rang through the corridor. Soundwave's spark quivered with anger at himself and he adjusted his grip, tightened the twist of his cables, and lifted the fallen warrior another few inches.

The sound did not repeat itself.

Stronger than many gave him credit for, but the trip to the medbay was still a laborious one. Made all the more grueling by the heaviness in his spark.

Soundwave had anticipated his partner's actions. He had guessed what Dreadwing might do when and if the truth came to light. He knew there would be no persuading Dreadwing otherwise. His loyalty to the Decepticons had always come second to his loyalty to his twin, his brother.

Soundwave, despite their vorns-long relationship, could never be certain where he fell in that hierarchy of importance. Considering that Dreadwing had followed Lord Megatron's command without argument, perhaps Soundwave had always known his place. Perhaps he had been unwilling to admit it to himself.

He could not blame Dreadwing. For Soundwave, he valued his symbiotes above all, then Lord Megatron and the Decepticons second. It was why he had never protested Dreadwing's many absences.

Their mutual, unflinching loyalty had always been part of the draw.

Now, it would seem, that same loyalty was a miscalculation and a downfall.

The medbay door opened to Soundwave's override. It took careful manipulation and more than a few curses on his part to get Dreadwing up onto the berth, his frame already shifting to the dark greys of death. The blue and yellow that Soundwave had always admired were slowly vanishing.

His servo rested on Dreadwing's chassis, just below the seared wound. The frame that had once been warm and thrumming with life, was now empty and cold.

Soundwave dipped his helm.

Should he have spoken sooner? If he had been the one to tell Dreadwing, would matters have emerged differently? If given time to process the horrible truth, time in which Starscream wasn't within immediate reach, would Dreadwing have accepted it?

Or was it more than Starscream's act? Was it, also, Megatron's tolerance of Starscream's actions? His near-encouragement?

Soundwave could have told anyone, had they asked, that Lord Megatron was not going to force Starscream out. The dynamic between the two was strange, mutually destructive, and beyond explanation. They fed off of each other's madness, it seemed. Lord Megatron could no more offline Starscream than the Seeker could one day succeed in snuffing the Decepticon Leader's spark.

Lord Megatron would always choose Starscream. Would choose treachery and deceit over faith and loyalty.

Everyone else, it seemed, was expendable.

Perhaps it was fated to end this way. It was inevitable that Dreadwing's sense of honor would eventually clash with Lord Megatron's bid for universal domination. Maybe the tiny strings of glitching had been infesting his coding for a long, long time.

Soundwave cycled a ventilation and onlined his optics, beginning his work in silence. He could not inter Dreadwing in a crypt, but he could at least store his partner's empty frame until such time as a proper burial could be had. Perhaps once the war was won and Lord Megatron would not look twice if Soundwave disappeared for a week.

For now, cleaning Dreadwing's frame, making him presentable, was all that Soundwave could do. It was still better, by far, than to watch Dreadwing's frame get dumped into the recycling center.

How much, Soundwave wondered, should he blame himself. Could he have prevented this outcome?

No. The fault was not Soundwave's own.

_Starscream_. In the end, the bitterness cycled back toward Starscream.

He should have killed Starscream when he had the opportunity. The first time they met, long before Lord Megatron formed an attachment to the treacherous Seeker. Soundwave should have ensured Starscream's destruction.

He was paying for that mercy now.

If only he had listened to his instincts so many vorns ago. If only he had taken advantage of that dark alley or finding the broken Seeker on the battlefield or all of the opportunities, slipped away and ignored because his loyalty was to the Decepticons first.

There was but one consolation to be found. Dreadwing would be reunited with his twin in death, if the dark energon had not somehow corrupted Skyquake's spark. Soundwave supposed that might have been Dreadwing's intentions all along.

He could not say for certain. Vorns had separated them, battles upon battles, and the Dreadwing that returned to Soundwave was not fully the Dreadwing he remembered. They had both changed, for better or worse he could not say.

He mourned his partner's loss. It ached at his very core, but it was a familiar ache. One of longing and resignation. Dreadwing's return had been so very brief. Soundwave hadn't had time to acclimate to his partner's presence before Dreadwing was gone again.

If not for the physical proof beneath his servos, he might almost believe he was waiting once more. Waiting for Dreadwing to return.

The finality of the grey frame was all the reminder Soundwave needed. Dreadwing was gone and there was nothing Soundwave could do.

He cycled a ventilation, in and out, the twisting churn of his spark unabated. Anger roiled beneath the surface, battering at Soundwave's control. But he would do nothing, like so many times before.

A spark for a spark. A life for a life. And yet, by the end, only one was left standing in the middle of an empty battlefield piled high with grey frames.

That was the difference between himself and Dreadwing.

Where his partner could not see beyond the betrayal and the sacrilege, Soundwave had to see the larger picture. He had two symbiotes relying on him, all that were left of a once larger cadre. Killing Starscream would gain him nothing, and lose him what little he had left.

Maybe it was the bitterness. The anger. That Dreadwing would risk it all for revenge and think nothing of leaving Soundwave behind again.

He did not know. The pain was still too fresh to apply logic to emotion. He would have to examine his own feelings at a later date.

For now, Soundwave had a job to do. It was what had gotten him through countless vorns of abandonment, and it would get him through several more. For better or for worse.

* * *

a/n: I imagine at least two more in the series, perhaps even more if the muses keep giving me more. I rather like this pairing for TFP. I just like writing TFP Decepticons.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated! I'd love to know if anyone actually enjoys this pairing, too.


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